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Page 1 (except for DHS and FBI logos which I have no desire to duplicate)
TLP:WHITE
JOINT ANALYSIS REPORT
DISCLAIMER:
This report is provided “as is” for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within. DHS does not endorse any commercial product or service referenced in this advisory or otherwise. This document is distributed as Subject to standard copyright rules, information may be distributed without restriction. For more information on the Traffic Light Protocol, see https://www.us-cert.gov/tlp.
(Comment: official publications of the federal government created by federal employees in official duties are not subject to copyright protection but may be denied in accordance with concerns for national security, judicial process, or law enforcement)
Reference Number: JAR-16-20296
December 29, 2016
GRIZZLY STEPPE – Russian Malicious Cyber Activity
Summary
This Joint Analysis Report (JAR) is the result of analytic efforts between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). This document provides technical details regarding the tools and infrastructure used by the Russian civilian and military intelligence Services (RIS) to compromise and exploit networks and endpoints associated with the U.S. election, as well as a range of U.S. Government, political, and private sector entities. The U.S. Government is referring to this malicious cyber activity by RIS as GRIZZLY STEPPE.
Previous JARs have not attributed malicious cyber activity to specific countries or threat actors. However, public attribution of these activities to RIS is supported by technical indicators from the U.S. Intelligence Community, DHS, FBI, the private sector, and other entities. This determination expands upon the Joint Statement released October 7, 2016, from the Department of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security.
This activity by RIS is part of an ongoing campaign of cyber-enabled operations directed at U.S. government and its citizens. These cyber operations have included spearphishing campaigns targeting government organizations, critical infrastructure entities, think tanks, universities, political organizations, and corporations leading to the theft of information. In foreign countries, RIS actors conducted damaging and/or disruptive cyber-attacks, including attacks on critical infrastructure networks. In some cases, RIS actors masqueraded as third parties, hiding behind false online personas designed to cause the victim to misattribute the source of the attack. This JAR provides technical indicators related to many of these operations, recommended mitigations, suggested actions to take in response to the indicators provided, and information on how to report such incidents to the U.S. Government.
Page 1 of 13.
Read it and weep.
My comment:It is bad enough that foreign interests may have decided the electoral results for us. Just think of how bad things can be if the 2020 Presidential election turns into a contest between Chinese and Russian actors trying to manipulate the Presidential and Congressional elections with more concern for getting or keeping amenable stooges in power. In such a scenario the United States of America is no longer truly really independent.
This is not about Americans or about public policy as established by the President and Congress.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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If Russia does this in 2016... think of what China can do in 2020. Heck, even India. Don't fool yourself about India. The world's most powerful democracy might prefer having another democratic superpower in the world, one that used to be reliable and would be again if it enjoyed "a new birth of freedom".
A hint: watch for the formation of a Delhi-Jakarta-Tokyo Axis in the event that the USA loses its democracy.
As a Democrat, I do not want that sort of help in ridding us of Donald Trump and a GOP majority in 2020. We need free and fair elections even if we lose them. The essence of democracy is the willingness to lose elections.
I have yet to figure what Vladimir Putin has to gain from Donald Trump unless it is to have a 'useful idiot' as President of the United States. Acquiescence in Russian aggression first in the former Soviet Union, and then elsewhere? Lax treatment of the Russian Mafia? Splintering of NATO?
...Reagan foreign policy and Sanders economics? I'd go for that. Wouldn't you?
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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01-04-2017, 05:00 AM
(This post was last modified: 01-04-2017, 05:05 AM by Eric the Green.)
(01-03-2017, 03:54 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: If Russia does this in 2016... think of what China can do in 2020. Heck, even India. Don't fool yourself about India. The world's most powerful democracy might prefer having another democratic superpower in the world, one that used to be reliable and would be again if it enjoyed "a new birth of freedom".
A hint: watch for the formation of a Delhi-Jakarta-Tokyo Axis in the event that the USA loses its democracy.
As a Democrat, I do not want that sort of help in ridding us of Donald Trump and a GOP majority in 2020. We need free and fair elections even if we lose them. The essence of democracy is the willingness to lose elections.
I have yet to figure what Vladimir Putin has to gain from Donald Trump unless it is to have a 'useful idiot' as President of the United States. Acquiescence in Russian aggression first in the former Soviet Union, and then elsewhere? Lax treatment of the Russian Mafia? Splintering of NATO?
...Reagan foreign policy and Sanders economics? I'd go for that. Wouldn't you?
I sure wouldn't go that far; we don't need "evil empires," useless military buildups and phony weapons sales to our enemies to benefit terrorists. But I get your point. Putin has already played the USA for a fool in Syria under Obama; imagine what he would do with Trump. NATO is already splintering because Putin is splitting off Turkey from it. I don't know where we'll end up by 2020. Not in a good place, it seems. For certain, a major war will break out in Asia in Dec or Jan 2020-21.
I wish the tyrants good luck in trying to resolve the Syria mess. The Obama USA and its allies have failed.
For sure, Russia hacked the US election. For our part, we Americans fell for all the fake news generated from the hacking, along with the FBI interference. Ultimately, the people vote, and the people are responsible for whom they vote for.
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Montana -- scanned but not hacked.
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Montana's top elections official said Friday that Russian hackers unsuccessfully probed the state's election systems for weaknesses in 2016, an acknowledgment that contradicts his staff's previous comments that Montana was not among the 21 or more states targeted.
Secretary of State Corey Stapleton wrote in his occasional newsletter that Russian agents tried to interfere with the 2016 elections and that "almost half the states (including Montana) were scanned for weaknesses in our elections systems."
"While no votes were changed by the Russians in our 2016 election cycle, there was a clear and significant threat to our nation's ability to conduct fair elections," wrote Stapleton, a Republican.
Elections Director Dana Corson in March told The Associated Press in response to a 50-state survey on election security that Montana was not among states targeted by hackers in 2016. At the time, Corson declined to speak further about the state's election security measures, saying: "We can't discuss things with election security."
Stapleton told the AP on Friday there was no contradiction between his assessment and Corson's because "scanning is not hacking" and that "it comes down to how you're interpreting 'targeted.'"
"Scanning for weaknesses is different from attempting to hack," Stapleton said. "We have used restraint because you don't want to alarm people. It is also improper not to let people know that that threat exists. To find that balance, we have actually chosen to use the words that (the U.S. Department of Homeland Security) has advised us."
Stapleton said he could not provide details about the extent to which Russian hackers probed Montana's elections systems, because Homeland Security officials have not fully disclosed those details to state officials. He said that he knows somebody was trying to test the systems' capabilities, but there was no breach.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/...smsnnews11
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(01-03-2017, 03:54 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: If Russia does this in 2016... think of what China can do in 2020. Heck, even India. Don't fool yourself about India. The world's most powerful democracy might prefer having another democratic superpower in the world, one that used to be reliable and would be again if it enjoyed "a new birth of freedom".
A hint: watch for the formation of a Delhi-Jakarta-Tokyo Axis in the event that the USA loses its democracy.
As a Democrat, I do not want that sort of help in ridding us of Donald Trump and a GOP majority in 2020. We need free and fair elections even if we lose them. The essence of democracy is the willingness to lose elections.
I have yet to figure what Vladimir Putin has to gain from Donald Trump unless it is to have a 'useful idiot' as President of the United States. Acquiescence in Russian aggression first in the former Soviet Union, and then elsewhere? Lax treatment of the Russian Mafia? Splintering of NATO?
...Reagan foreign policy and Sanders economics? I'd go for that. Wouldn't you?
Are you kidding me? You'd (the liberal's, blue's or progressives) be giving up a valuable excuse for loosing. What Putin has to gain is living and staying in power and not ending up dead ( killed in horrible ways or legally tried and executed) like dictators of old and relatively recent dictator's that we have witnessed over the years. You don't think letting immigrants (legal or illegal) vote isn't going to have an impact on democracy. If you had a brain, which you and most blues don't when your emotions are tapped, you'd be able to see the harm stuff like that can do to a democracy. Like I said in a thread that disappeared, there are differences between you and I that determine the way we vote, the ideology we represent, where we end up and so forth.
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07-31-2018, 09:08 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-31-2018, 09:14 PM by Classic-Xer.)
(01-04-2017, 05:00 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: (01-03-2017, 03:54 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: If Russia does this in 2016... think of what China can do in 2020. Heck, even India. Don't fool yourself about India. The world's most powerful democracy might prefer having another democratic superpower in the world, one that used to be reliable and would be again if it enjoyed "a new birth of freedom".
A hint: watch for the formation of a Delhi-Jakarta-Tokyo Axis in the event that the USA loses its democracy.
As a Democrat, I do not want that sort of help in ridding us of Donald Trump and a GOP majority in 2020. We need free and fair elections even if we lose them. The essence of democracy is the willingness to lose elections.
I have yet to figure what Vladimir Putin has to gain from Donald Trump unless it is to have a 'useful idiot' as President of the United States. Acquiescence in Russian aggression first in the former Soviet Union, and then elsewhere? Lax treatment of the Russian Mafia? Splintering of NATO?
...Reagan foreign policy and Sanders economics? I'd go for that. Wouldn't you?
I sure wouldn't go that far; we don't need "evil empires," useless military buildups and phony weapons sales to our enemies to benefit terrorists. But I get your point. Putin has already played the USA for a fool in Syria under Obama; imagine what he would do with Trump. NATO is already splintering because Putin is splitting off Turkey from it. I don't know where we'll end up by 2020. Not in a good place, it seems. For certain, a major war will break out in Asia in Dec or Jan 2020-21.
I wish the tyrants good luck in trying to resolve the Syria mess. The Obama USA and its allies have failed.
For sure, Russia hacked the US election. For our part, we Americans fell for all the fake news generated from the hacking, along with the FBI interference. Ultimately, the people vote, and the people are responsible for whom they vote for.
Putin could play us for fools under Obama because Obama was no match for Putin. How much would we have to fuck around with Russia/Putin before Putin and RUSSIAN elites start having concerns for their own well beings? You're right, blue America and it's blue European allies have failed and it won't be long and you'll start seeing shit like that happening within blue America and blue Europe.
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(07-31-2018, 09:08 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (01-04-2017, 05:00 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: (01-03-2017, 03:54 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: If Russia does this in 2016... think of what China can do in 2020. Heck, even India. Don't fool yourself about India. The world's most powerful democracy might prefer having another democratic superpower in the world, one that used to be reliable and would be again if it enjoyed "a new birth of freedom".
A hint: watch for the formation of a Delhi-Jakarta-Tokyo Axis in the event that the USA loses its democracy.
As a Democrat, I do not want that sort of help in ridding us of Donald Trump and a GOP majority in 2020. We need free and fair elections even if we lose them. The essence of democracy is the willingness to lose elections.
I have yet to figure what Vladimir Putin has to gain from Donald Trump unless it is to have a 'useful idiot' as President of the United States. Acquiescence in Russian aggression first in the former Soviet Union, and then elsewhere? Lax treatment of the Russian Mafia? Splintering of NATO?
...Reagan foreign policy and Sanders economics? I'd go for that. Wouldn't you?
I sure wouldn't go that far; we don't need "evil empires," useless military buildups and phony weapons sales to our enemies to benefit terrorists. But I get your point. Putin has already played the USA for a fool in Syria under Obama; imagine what he would do with Trump. NATO is already splintering because Putin is splitting off Turkey from it. I don't know where we'll end up by 2020. Not in a good place, it seems. For certain, a major war will break out in Asia in Dec or Jan 2020-21.
I wish the tyrants good luck in trying to resolve the Syria mess. The Obama USA and its allies have failed.
For sure, Russia hacked the US election. For our part, we Americans fell for all the fake news generated from the hacking, along with the FBI interference. Ultimately, the people vote, and the people are responsible for whom they vote for.
Putin could play us for fools under Obama because Obama was no match for Putin. How much would we have to fuck around with Russia/Putin before Putin and RUSSIAN elites start having concerns for their own well beings? You're right, blue America and it's blue European allies have failed and it won't be long and you'll start seeing shit like that happening within blue America and blue Europe.
Putin could not play any fast ones with Obama. Obama did nothing to Russia, and Putin couldn't do anything to America -- which might have been the best of all possible worlds.
Trump is a foolish egoist, and Putin can play his foolishness and egoism in ways hurtful to America. Putin may have assumed certain norms of American foreign policy due to its inertia; Obama's foreign policy is little different from that of the elder Bush despite ideological differences. Trump has the absurd idea that diplomacy is like business dealings in which one sells schlock TV shows, steaks, gambling junkets, or overpriced apartments. The quid pro quo might be effective in selling policies to corrupt dictators, but it does not work with democracies in which the rule of law prevails. Think of how badly Joachim von Ribbentrop served as Ambassador to the United Kingdom; his style of person-to-person dealings in which he offered powerful people what he thought they wanted in return for concessions on German interests. This was more effective when he was Foreign Minister of the Devil's Reich, when Nazi Germany was offering things to dictatorial regimes whose leaders were interested as the Fuehrer was in dealings over things that others were to be robbed of.
...I have no love for corrupt kleptocrats. I prefer the sorts of leaders who don't put polonium-210 in the tea of escaped dissidents, who don't assassinate journalists, and who don't rob the national treasury to enrich themselves. I also prefer leaders who don't make scapegoats as excuses for personal failure, who don't stir up religious and ethnic bigotry, who don't assume the guilt of the accused, who don't lie about their electoral achievements, and who do not bait the media.
The rest of the world recognizes Donald Trump as an aberration likely to be defeated resoundingly in 2020 even if his political power isn't fully undone in November of this year. They see America in the long story; we get to endure Donald Trump in the here-and-now. I hope that we have learned our lesson.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(08-01-2018, 08:59 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: (07-31-2018, 09:08 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (01-04-2017, 05:00 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: (01-03-2017, 03:54 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: If Russia does this in 2016... think of what China can do in 2020. Heck, even India. Don't fool yourself about India. The world's most powerful democracy might prefer having another democratic superpower in the world, one that used to be reliable and would be again if it enjoyed "a new birth of freedom".
A hint: watch for the formation of a Delhi-Jakarta-Tokyo Axis in the event that the USA loses its democracy.
As a Democrat, I do not want that sort of help in ridding us of Donald Trump and a GOP majority in 2020. We need free and fair elections even if we lose them. The essence of democracy is the willingness to lose elections.
I have yet to figure what Vladimir Putin has to gain from Donald Trump unless it is to have a 'useful idiot' as President of the United States. Acquiescence in Russian aggression first in the former Soviet Union, and then elsewhere? Lax treatment of the Russian Mafia? Splintering of NATO?
...Reagan foreign policy and Sanders economics? I'd go for that. Wouldn't you?
I sure wouldn't go that far; we don't need "evil empires," useless military buildups and phony weapons sales to our enemies to benefit terrorists. But I get your point. Putin has already played the USA for a fool in Syria under Obama; imagine what he would do with Trump. NATO is already splintering because Putin is splitting off Turkey from it. I don't know where we'll end up by 2020. Not in a good place, it seems. For certain, a major war will break out in Asia in Dec or Jan 2020-21.
I wish the tyrants good luck in trying to resolve the Syria mess. The Obama USA and its allies have failed.
For sure, Russia hacked the US election. For our part, we Americans fell for all the fake news generated from the hacking, along with the FBI interference. Ultimately, the people vote, and the people are responsible for whom they vote for.
Putin could play us for fools under Obama because Obama was no match for Putin. How much would we have to fuck around with Russia/Putin before Putin and RUSSIAN elites start having concerns for their own well beings? You're right, blue America and it's blue European allies have failed and it won't be long and you'll start seeing shit like that happening within blue America and blue Europe.
Putin could not play any fast ones with Obama. Obama did nothing to Russia, and Putin couldn't do anything to America -- which might have been the best of all possible worlds.
Trump is a foolish egoist, and Putin can play his foolishness and egoism in ways hurtful to America. Putin may have assumed certain norms of American foreign policy due to its inertia; Obama's foreign policy is little different from that of the elder Bush despite ideological differences. Trump has the absurd idea that diplomacy is like business dealings in which one sells schlock TV shows, steaks, gambling junkets, or overpriced apartments. The quid pro quo might be effective in selling policies to corrupt dictators, but it does not work with democracies in which the rule of law prevails. Think of how badly Joachim von Ribbentrop served as Ambassador to the United Kingdom; his style of person-to-person dealings in which he offered powerful people what he thought they wanted in return for concessions on German interests. This was more effective when he was Foreign Minister of the Devil's Reich, when Nazi Germany was offering things to dictatorial regimes whose leaders were interested as the Fuehrer was in dealings over things that others were to be robbed of.
...I have no love for corrupt kleptocrats. I prefer the sorts of leaders who don't put polonium-210 in the tea of escaped dissidents, who don't assassinate journalists, and who don't rob the national treasury to enrich themselves. I also prefer leaders who don't make scapegoats as excuses for personal failure, who don't stir up religious and ethnic bigotry, who don't assume the guilt of the accused, who don't lie about their electoral achievements, and who do not bait the media.
The rest of the world recognizes Donald Trump as an aberration likely to be defeated resoundingly in 2020 even if his political power isn't fully undone in November of this year. They see America in the long story; we get to endure Donald Trump in the here-and-now. I hope that we have learned our lesson.
The chances are likely that you are looking at a Red wave in 2020. We might give the Democrats a couple of years to prove beyond all doubt how worthless/pathetic the Democratic party is today as far as AMERICAN INTERESTS are concerned? I can afford a couple of worthless years watching Democrats doing nothing but being a pain in the ass as issues build and anger and resentment of blues rises. Think about it, you're associated with a party who is damn near split between European socialism and American capitalism, the serving the needs of US citizens and the needs of foreign born citizens ( refugees, illegal and/or illegal immigrants, foreign visitors and foreign entities) and so forth. How many more years til 4T?
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(08-02-2018, 12:16 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (08-01-2018, 08:59 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: (07-31-2018, 09:08 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (01-04-2017, 05:00 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: (01-03-2017, 03:54 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: If Russia does this in 2016... think of what China can do in 2020. Heck, even India. Don't fool yourself about India. The world's most powerful democracy might prefer having another democratic superpower in the world, one that used to be reliable and would be again if it enjoyed "a new birth of freedom".
A hint: watch for the formation of a Delhi-Jakarta-Tokyo Axis in the event that the USA loses its democracy.
As a Democrat, I do not want that sort of help in ridding us of Donald Trump and a GOP majority in 2020. We need free and fair elections even if we lose them. The essence of democracy is the willingness to lose elections.
I have yet to figure what Vladimir Putin has to gain from Donald Trump unless it is to have a 'useful idiot' as President of the United States. Acquiescence in Russian aggression first in the former Soviet Union, and then elsewhere? Lax treatment of the Russian Mafia? Splintering of NATO?
...Reagan foreign policy and Sanders economics? I'd go for that. Wouldn't you?
I sure wouldn't go that far; we don't need "evil empires," useless military buildups and phony weapons sales to our enemies to benefit terrorists. But I get your point. Putin has already played the USA for a fool in Syria under Obama; imagine what he would do with Trump. NATO is already splintering because Putin is splitting off Turkey from it. I don't know where we'll end up by 2020. Not in a good place, it seems. For certain, a major war will break out in Asia in Dec or Jan 2020-21.
I wish the tyrants good luck in trying to resolve the Syria mess. The Obama USA and its allies have failed.
For sure, Russia hacked the US election. For our part, we Americans fell for all the fake news generated from the hacking, along with the FBI interference. Ultimately, the people vote, and the people are responsible for whom they vote for.
Putin could play us for fools under Obama because Obama was no match for Putin. How much would we have to fuck around with Russia/Putin before Putin and RUSSIAN elites start having concerns for their own well beings? You're right, blue America and it's blue European allies have failed and it won't be long and you'll start seeing shit like that happening within blue America and blue Europe.
Putin could not play any fast ones with Obama. Obama did nothing to Russia, and Putin couldn't do anything to America -- which might have been the best of all possible worlds.
Trump is a foolish egoist, and Putin can play his foolishness and egoism in ways hurtful to America. Putin may have assumed certain norms of American foreign policy due to its inertia; Obama's foreign policy is little different from that of the elder Bush despite ideological differences. Trump has the absurd idea that diplomacy is like business dealings in which one sells schlock TV shows, steaks, gambling junkets, or overpriced apartments. The quid pro quo might be effective in selling policies to corrupt dictators, but it does not work with democracies in which the rule of law prevails. Think of how badly Joachim von Ribbentrop served as Ambassador to the United Kingdom; his style of person-to-person dealings in which he offered powerful people what he thought they wanted in return for concessions on German interests. This was more effective when he was Foreign Minister of the Devil's Reich, when Nazi Germany was offering things to dictatorial regimes whose leaders were interested as the Fuehrer was in dealings over things that others were to be robbed of.
...I have no love for corrupt kleptocrats. I prefer the sorts of leaders who don't put polonium-210 in the tea of escaped dissidents, who don't assassinate journalists, and who don't rob the national treasury to enrich themselves. I also prefer leaders who don't make scapegoats as excuses for personal failure, who don't stir up religious and ethnic bigotry, who don't assume the guilt of the accused, who don't lie about their electoral achievements, and who do not bait the media.
The rest of the world recognizes Donald Trump as an aberration likely to be defeated resoundingly in 2020 even if his political power isn't fully undone in November of this year. They see America in the long story; we get to endure Donald Trump in the here-and-now. I hope that we have learned our lesson.
The chances are likely that you are looking at a Red wave in 2020. We might give the Democrats a couple of years to prove beyond all doubt how worthless/pathetic the Democratic party is today as far as AMERICAN INTERESTS are concerned? I can afford a couple of worthless years watching Democrats doing nothing but being a pain in the ass as issues build and anger and resentment of blues rises. Think about it, you're associated with a party who is damn near split between European socialism and American capitalism, the serving the needs of US citizens and the needs of foreign born citizens ( refugees, illegal and/or illegal immigrants, foreign visitors and foreign entities) and so forth. How many more years til 4T?
The 2018 midterm elections have not even been held yet. I expect gridlock if the Democrats pick up one or both Houses of Congress. The President that we have has shown no capacity or willingness to compromise except on moral issues -- that is, self-indulgence.
We have a huge divide on what "American interests" are. I am well aware what the term "American interests overseas" are -- code words for American corporate interests outside the USA. Here? We have a highly-polarized society, with some people holding a nearly fascist conception of the purpose of government to make sure that the 'right people' get whatever they want and others believing that a fair shake for everyone is the ideal. There is little ideological overlap.
The last time the Democrats had the Presidency and both Houses of Congress was 2009 and 2010, and those two years were a marvelous time for major efforts to reform America while resuscitating an economy that had gone very bad very fast on a collective get-rich-quick scheme gone bad. The Master Class got rescued, and it chose to establish a neo-feudal social order in which enriching and pampering the classes who owned the assets or administered private organizations were to get full power over the economy.
If you want to go after illegal aliens as the worst people around -- we have our own rogues, born and bred here in the Good Old U.S. of A. Yes, I am sick of perverts, dopers, and child abusers. Who isn't? We can't deport them. Bad people come in all ethnic and religious origins -- and classes. On the latter -- Donald Trump is a singularly-horrible person, and that is much of the problem. Need I tell you that some of the worst perpetrators of the Holocaust in central and Balkan Europe were aristocrats who hated Jewish competition (as small business owners) to their semi-feudal big landholdings and the privileged military elite? In Hitlerland the plutocrats and executives gladly used the harshness of the economic order to exploit slave labor including that of Jews doomed to murder once those Jews had been broken down with toil to exhaustion on starvation rations.
But we have problems to work out, including the end of the nexus between material productivity and prosperity. An attempt to continue such implies material waste on an exponentially-increasing scale that implies exponential increases in the depletion of natural resources (and an obvious crash when the resources are spent). Just because I can afford to buy a new flat-screen TV (we already have one per person in our household) does not mean that I am ready to buy another one. Donald Trump suggests that greater energy use is the key to prosperity -- so drive vehicles that guzzle more fuel. That too is waste. There is hardly an easier way to save money than to avoid waste. Do you recognize thrift as an economic virtue? It's an old conservative virtue, one that liberals have adopted as environmentalism.
The solution of making sure that more income goes to owners and managers ensures that most people get to enjoy no prosperity. So living standards fail to rise as productive technologies improve. If such is so, then we might as well scrap the industrial order and go back to the peasant-and-artisan world that seems to fit human nature better than do impersonal bureaucracies better at grafting than at service and of plutocrats who inevitably give us wars for profit that will surely bring mass death and destruction. Admit it -- most people are peasants and artisans by character. The peasant may be a yeoman farmer and the artisan might be a shopkeeper or skilled worker, but he is operating on a human scale. Indeed I have my idea of where people were happiest in somewhat-modern times: early New England, where land was too rough for anything other than small-scale farming (thus no slave-owning plantations) and too cheap for becoming a basis of an aristocratic way of life, where the climate was chilly enough to allow people to store the bounty of the harvest through the cold winter, where business could never get so big that it could develop an inhuman scale. People could not get away with idleness, but there was always a clear nexus between toil and prosperity. If you look at human lifespans... they were high by the standards of most of the world today. Stay physically and mentally active -- and socially connected -- as late as possible and you will get very old very slowly.
We now enter a post-industrial world. You cannot deny this reality: capitalism was doomed to overthrow in a proletarian revolution (as Marx predicted because he did not see what could save capitalism) unless the capitalists could give workers (Marx' proletariat) a stake in the social order. That meant that the worker was to be transformed from an object of pure exploitation into a consumer. Capitalists could stili profit off consumer goods such as furniture, appliances, electronic toys, and motor vehicles. They just wouldn't get to sweat workers as they once did.
The solution that the Hard Right offers is that people pay more through higher rental prices, loan-shark interest, and the old right-wing bugaboo of bloated government that offers dubious services. Simply add more profit to every personal activity. I see no good out of that. The Right can find plenty of ways to make the government an enforcer of the ways of the economic elites.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(08-02-2018, 12:16 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: The chances are likely that you are looking at a Red wave in 2020. We might give the Democrats a couple of years to prove beyond all doubt how worthless/pathetic the Democratic party is today as far as AMERICAN INTERESTS are concerned? I can afford a couple of worthless years watching Democrats doing nothing but being a pain in the ass as issues build and anger and resentment of blues rises. Think about it, you're associated with a party who is damn near split between European socialism and American capitalism, the serving the needs of US citizens and the needs of foreign born citizens ( refugees, illegal and/or illegal immigrants, foreign visitors and foreign entities) and so forth. How many more years til 4T?
I doubt there will be a RED wave in 2018 or 2020 either. That's not to say that a BLUE wave will subsume the GOP either. We're all in for an extended muddle, unless the GOP manages to keep control at some minimalist level. If that happens, and maybe even if it doesn't since we've already set the table with the first two Trump years, a major recession will clobber the poor and middle class. The top 10% will still do fine … as they always do. What happens then will be 4T finale. for now, it's too hard to analyze.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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(08-02-2018, 10:20 AM)David Horn Wrote: (08-02-2018, 12:16 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: The chances are likely that you are looking at a Red wave in 2020. We might give the Democrats a couple of years to prove beyond all doubt how worthless/pathetic the Democratic party is today as far as AMERICAN INTERESTS are concerned? I can afford a couple of worthless years watching Democrats doing nothing but being a pain in the ass as issues build and anger and resentment of blues rises. Think about it, you're associated with a party who is damn near split between European socialism and American capitalism, the serving the needs of US citizens and the needs of foreign born citizens ( refugees, illegal and/or illegal immigrants, foreign visitors and foreign entities) and so forth. How many more years til 4T?
I doubt there will be a RED wave in 2018 or 2020 either. That's not to say that a BLUE wave will subsume the GOP either. We're all in for an extended muddle, unless the GOP manages to keep control at some minimalist level. If that happens, and maybe even if it doesn't since we've already set the table with the first two Trump years, a major recession will clobber the poor and middle class. The top 10% will still do fine … as they always do. What happens then will be 4T finale. for now, it's too hard to analyze.
I tend to agree with David. Trump has managed to flip the see saw. [understatement] He is viewed very poorly by the blues and center. [/understatement]. The blues will get another inning in 2018 and 2020. The question is whether the blues will then govern the whole country, believe their victory is a mandate rather than a rejection of extremism. If they don't see the center and build on the center, the see saw goes on...
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
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(08-02-2018, 02:48 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (08-02-2018, 10:20 AM)David Horn Wrote: (08-02-2018, 12:16 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: The chances are likely that you are looking at a Red wave in 2020. We might give the Democrats a couple of years to prove beyond all doubt how worthless/pathetic the Democratic party is today as far as AMERICAN INTERESTS are concerned? I can afford a couple of worthless years watching Democrats doing nothing but being a pain in the ass as issues build and anger and resentment of blues rises. Think about it, you're associated with a party who is damn near split between European socialism and American capitalism, the serving the needs of US citizens and the needs of foreign born citizens ( refugees, illegal and/or illegal immigrants, foreign visitors and foreign entities) and so forth. How many more years til 4T?
I doubt there will be a RED wave in 2018 or 2020 either. That's not to say that a BLUE wave will subsume the GOP either. We're all in for an extended muddle, unless the GOP manages to keep control at some minimalist level. If that happens, and maybe even if it doesn't since we've already set the table with the first two Trump years, a major recession will clobber the poor and middle class. The top 10% will still do fine … as they always do. What happens then will be 4T finale. for now, it's too hard to analyze.
I tend to agree with David. Trump has managed to flip the see saw. [understatement] He is viewed very poorly by the blues and center. [/understatement]. The blues will get another inning in 2018 and 2020. The question is whether the blues will then govern the whole country, believe their victory is a mandate rather than a rejection of extremism. If they don't see the center and build on the center, the see saw goes on...
Thomas B. Edsall has a really good analysis of this in the NY Times. I don't agree entirely, because I believe that economic issues have a much broader appeal than all the culture nonsense (that's unresolvable in case). Read some of the comments, which are more to the point I think.
We have issues that must be addressed that are being made all the worse by Trump & Company -- the climate even more than the economy. That needs to be halted, but the almost certain addition of another right-winger on the SCOTUS may make that all but impossible. If 2020 isn't a blow-out, and packing the court isn't feasible, then the near and mid-term future may be toast. Sadly, that's how I see it. The culture warriors just can't stand down for anything.
I wrote this for my local paper back in February, and it still holds water.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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08-02-2018, 10:26 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-02-2018, 10:26 PM by Marypoza.)
(08-02-2018, 03:13 PM)Davif Horn Wrote: Thomas B. Edsall has a really good analysis of this in the NY Times. I don't agree entirely, because I believe that economic issues have a much broader appeal than all the culture nonsense (that's unresolvable in case). Read some of the comments, which are more to the point I think.
We have issues that must be addressed that are being made all the worse by Trump & Company -- the climate even more than the economy. That needs to be halted, but the almost certain addition of another right-winger on the SCOTUS may make that all but impossible. If 2020 isn't a blow-out, and packing the court isn't feasible, then the near and mid-term future may be toast. Sadly, that's how I see it. The culture warriors just can't stand down for anything.
I wrote this for my local paper back in February, and it still holds water.
-- like l said somewhere else in this site, maybe we're supposed 2 be fighting the Culture Wars this 4T. I also like your idea about a schism in the saecula where the wingnuts are still in the 3T while the rest of us have moved on
Nice pic with the op ed btw
 my 2 yr old Niece/yr old Nephew 2020
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(08-02-2018, 10:20 AM)David Horn Wrote: (08-02-2018, 12:16 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: The chances are likely that you are looking at a Red wave in 2020. We might give the Democrats a couple of years to prove beyond all doubt how worthless/pathetic the Democratic party is today as far as AMERICAN INTERESTS are concerned? I can afford a couple of worthless years watching Democrats doing nothing but being a pain in the ass as issues build and anger and resentment of blues rises. Think about it, you're associated with a party who is damn near split between European socialism and American capitalism, the serving the needs of US citizens and the needs of foreign born citizens ( refugees, illegal and/or illegal immigrants, foreign visitors and foreign entities) and so forth. How many more years til 4T?
I doubt there will be a RED wave in 2018 or 2020 either. That's not to say that a BLUE wave will subsume the GOP either. We're all in for an extended muddle, unless the GOP manages to keep control at some minimalist level. If that happens, and maybe even if it doesn't since we've already set the table with the first two Trump years, a major recession will clobber the poor and middle class. The top 10% will still do fine … as they always do. What happens then will be 4T finale. for now, it's too hard to analyze.
I doubt there will be one in 2018 because there isn't need for one in 2018. I think the Blue wave will end up being a minor ripple as far as the House. However, I can see a Red Wave giving the Republicans full control over the Senate. As far as the poor, the poor have set themselves up to be clobbered and I'm going watch as the blues end up being clobbered by mobs of angry poor people. Red America is heavily armed and doesn't place much value on so-called deplorable's that Hilary made the epic mistake of associating with Trump supporters. Dude, I've never been to a Trump rally and I have no interest in ever attending one either. I don't get into drama.
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(08-03-2018, 12:44 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I doubt there will be one in 2018 because there isn't need for one in 2018. I think the Blue wave will end up being a minor ripple as far as the House. However, I can see a Red Wave giving the Republicans full control over the Senate. As far as the poor, the poor have set themselves up to be clobbered and I'm going watch as the blues end up being clobbered by mobs of angry poor people. Red America is heavily armed and doesn't place much value on so-called deplorable's that Hilary made the epic mistake of associating with Trump supporters. Dude, I've never been to a Trump rally and I have no interest in ever attending one either. I don't get into drama.
And I suspect you are wearing red tinted glasses, that you have built up an immunity to reality which is common among extremists. You are hardly alone. We'll see.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
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(08-02-2018, 03:13 PM)David Horn Wrote: (08-02-2018, 02:48 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (08-02-2018, 10:20 AM)David Horn Wrote: (08-02-2018, 12:16 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: The chances are likely that you are looking at a Red wave in 2020. We might give the Democrats a couple of years to prove beyond all doubt how worthless/pathetic the Democratic party is today as far as AMERICAN INTERESTS are concerned? I can afford a couple of worthless years watching Democrats doing nothing but being a pain in the ass as issues build and anger and resentment of blues rises. Think about it, you're associated with a party who is damn near split between European socialism and American capitalism, the serving the needs of US citizens and the needs of foreign born citizens ( refugees, illegal and/or illegal immigrants, foreign visitors and foreign entities) and so forth. How many more years til 4T?
I doubt there will be a RED wave in 2018 or 2020 either. That's not to say that a BLUE wave will subsume the GOP either. We're all in for an extended muddle, unless the GOP manages to keep control at some minimalist level. If that happens, and maybe even if it doesn't since we've already set the table with the first two Trump years, a major recession will clobber the poor and middle class. The top 10% will still do fine … as they always do. What happens then will be 4T finale. for now, it's too hard to analyze.
I tend to agree with David. Trump has managed to flip the see saw. [understatement] He is viewed very poorly by the blues and center. [/understatement]. The blues will get another inning in 2018 and 2020. The question is whether the blues will then govern the whole country, believe their victory is a mandate rather than a rejection of extremism. If they don't see the center and build on the center, the see saw goes on...
Thomas B. Edsall has a really good analysis of this in the NY Times. I don't agree entirely, because I believe that economic issues have a much broader appeal than all the culture nonsense (that's unresolvable in case). Read some of the comments, which are more to the point I think.
We have issues that must be addressed that are being made all the worse by Trump & Company -- the climate even more than the economy. That needs to be halted, but the almost certain addition of another right-winger on the SCOTUS may make that all but impossible. If 2020 isn't a blow-out, and packing the court isn't feasible, then the near and mid-term future may be toast. Sadly, that's how I see it. The culture warriors just can't stand down for anything.
I wrote this for my local paper back in February, and it still holds water.
To Classic X'er -- a trend does not prove a lasting direction. I fully recognize your belief that economic realities are more important to many people than anything else -- so long as such things as civil liberties, human rights, and equal opportunity are protected. As a general rule, tyranny is incompatible with economic equity and progress. I also recognize that you see the world cut neatly into well-defined classes of 'winners' and 'losers' and that we are wisest to let the 'winners' rule because they are better able to take care of themselves and create wealth. Now here are the problems with such an assumption: that the 'winners' may themselves be rogues on matters other than economics. Someone who gets rich off pornography that exploits vulnerable participants has very different motivations than does a medical missionary. Do you more admire Hugh Hefner than Albert Schweitzer? Add to this -- a rogue in his personal life can be very successful in his commercial milieu (let us say Harvey Weinstein) until he is exposed doing horrible things to people for his own gratification with the use of his power.
I am not convinced that the super-rich (many of whom have made few great sacrifices to get rich -- they simply came out of the womb of the consort of some successful businessman or entrepreneur and either found their way into easy money fine-tuning Daddy's business or inheriting a share of Grandpa's huge wealth) are any more competent at business than are small-scale entrepreneurs who start up a small business because they would rather run a restaurant than milk cows or slaughter livestock. (OK, maybe they are butchers operating the business, but they present the meat, set the prices, greet customers, and handle the money... and either own or rent the building -- which makes them businessmen). The talent for operating a business -- and it is well worth seeking, honing, and fostering -- is not so rare as it seems. If Wal*Mart were to collapse, then there would be plenty of people to do much of what Wal*Mart does, but perhaps better. The business owners (unlike Wal*Mart clerks) would be better at guiding customers to get what best fits their needs instead of selling something without such aid because it is cheap enough that if something goes wrong it is not much of a loss. I look at how Wal*Mart does business and its model depends upon cheap production overseas under sweatshop management of sophisticated manufacturing, cheap transportation (container ships), management that depends upon low-skilled workers to do little more than stock the shelves and check the merchandise (the trickiest thing for such people is to card people for alcoholic beverages, cancerweed products, and R-rated movies). Do you know who gives you help in deciding to buy merchandise there? Fellow customers who know more about the stuff than the clerks in the store. But for small electrical items or clothing, Wal*Mart is a fast track from collecting the raw materials through production, warehousing, merchandising, and sale -- to the landfill.
The market does some things well, but there is no inherent decency or humanity in profit-and-loss judgments. The temptation for a plutocrat or executive is just the same as for a feudal lord, a slave-owning planter, a gangster, or a highwayman -- gain, and getting away with it. To keep an economy compatible with democratic norms and the ethical teachings of any great prophet or moral philosopher (whether Gautama Buddha or Bertrand Russell) we need some social constraints upon the market so that the system can offer opportunity, foster personal growth, protect vulnerable people, keep the environment from getting ruined, and keep the system honest. I call for a 'social market' system, and not the Gilded-style paradise for elites but Hell for workers that is China or is what Donald Trump dreams of.
Predicting the continuing direction of a trend is itself risky. Just think of the graph of a function in which one has tiny denominators. Counter-intuitive as it may seem, small numbers can be big trouble for mathematicians, scientists, and engineers; ask an astrophysicist what happens when volume gets shrunk to a very tiny amount on a massive object. A Sun-sized object shrunk to the diameter of the Twin Cities would become a black hole. Yes, small numbers can be gigantic problems. Time is running out for the Republicans to undo the harm that Donald Trump has done to many of the assumptions that most Americans have of what is normal and decent in the American political tradition. Republican politicians face the necessity of dodging the consequences of Trump rhetoric and policies. In this case, time is running out. What you think of Donald Trump is not what a majority of Americans believe. Sure, his supporters will do anything for him -- but that is how things go with undemocratic mass movements. There are people who would commit crimes in his name. Contrast Barack Obama or Gerald Ford -- nobody would do anything horrible in their names. Is that poor leadership? No -- it is simply human decency that recognizes the need for human dignity as an objective of a good world.
Time is becoming the small denominator. Eventually it will be zero, at which point the future becomes the irrevocable past.
To Bob Butler and David Horn -- there are abnormal times in American history, and not only because we are in a Crisis Era. We know that the Founding Fathers of America were mostly good people, or at least that they were able to bring out the best and suppress the worst (except slavery)... and they operated rationally in coming to what proved collective decisions. There was nothing fanatical or sadistic about them. If Sam Adams was a radical, he at least didn't call for massacres of Tories; George Washington treated the participants of the Whiskey Rebellion with unforeseen kindness. Abraham Lincoln used rhetoric mathematical in its precision and proved the Confederate hypothesis a grave mistake. Franklin Roosevelt offered Americans exactly what they wanted in dealing with the gangster enemies of the USA in World War II -- get it over, and go back to normal... and arrange to bring the German, Italian, and Japanese peoples back to the community of respectable nations. Respectable people do not impose the Bataan Death March, loot and enslave conquered peoples, or send people to the gas chambers or shooting pits due to their religion or race.
Pick any high-profile figure of the American Revolution -- Franklin? Hancock? Jefferson? -- and however the difference of style might be, and you will find people who have a clear idea of what is best and the conditions necessary for achieving it. Lincoln? The epitome of reason. FDR? He couldn't do everything, but he could certainly find the best people for the job. Obama seemed to be part of that tradition, and he at the least calmed the Crisis. Trump does not compare to them except as antithesis. For him, government service is a means of getting rich or of foisting an ideology upon people who may loathe that ideology. Such tends to create a Crisis. Donald Trump is the George III of this Crisis Era.
'Flipping the see-saw'? Donald Trump has ignored the lessons of history. To him, it is all about himself (which is normal for an extreme narcissist or a sociopath). He effectively mocks and discredits free-market solutions, replacing markets with institutional power. He is a Big-Government right-winger, and there is the problem. I am satisfied that the older Christian Protestant fundamentalists who have been the mass support of right-wing ideology since Reagan out of identity will give way to younger Christian Protestant fundamentalists who actually read their Bibles and slow down to read the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount is not to be confused with an economic prophesy that came from Ayn Rand. Identity often must give way to core belief -- and it is just as well.
Democrats taking over one House of Congress make a fool of this President and weaken him greatly. Democrats taking over both Houses of Government create gridlock much like that that preceded the American Civil War. Trump's bungled tariffs are likely to get us some economic retribution that will itself precipitate demands for huge change. If the pattern of other Crisis Eras in American history holds, the leader or leadership of the time will be logical and highly focused. Maybe there are more potential leaders analogous to Lincoln or FDR than we think possible. Donald Trump is the antithesis of such a leader.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(08-02-2018, 10:26 PM)Marypoza Wrote: -- like l said somewhere else in this site, maybe we're supposed 2 be fighting the Culture Wars this 4T. I also like your idea about a schism in the saecula where the wingnuts are still in the 3T while the rest of us have moved on
Nice pic with the op ed btw
Thanks. I actually forgot it was there until I went to the site to create the link
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(08-03-2018, 12:44 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I doubt there will be <a Blue wave> in 2018 because there isn't need for one in 2018. I think the Blue wave will end up being a minor ripple as far as the House. However, I can see a Red Wave giving the Republicans full control over the Senate. As far as the poor, the poor have set themselves up to be clobbered and I'm going watch as the blues end up being clobbered by mobs of angry poor people. Red America is heavily armed and doesn't place much value on so-called deplorable's that Hilary made the epic mistake of associating with Trump supporters. Dude, I've never been to a Trump rally and I have no interest in ever attending one either. I don't get into drama.
I live in a very red area, and many of my friends are just as red as the area. They all have expectations that are, to be kind about it, whack-nut crazy, because they simply don't connect the dots between cause and effect. On the rare occasion that discussing politics won't start a shouting match, I tend to find myself in the distinct minority, but I've yet to lose. Irrational ideas can sound great until they have to be defended.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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